If you're in the business of selling food to the public or to other retailers by weight, it's essential to have well-calibrated scales. If your scales are inaccurate, you could be losing money by sending out over-generous quantities--or you could be inadvertently selling your customers short by not giving them what they've paid for. Either of these potentialities is bad for business, so it's vital that your scales are as close to perfect accuracy as possible!
Scales tend to lose accuracy over time, meaning that business and industrial grocery scales will periodically need to be professionally calibrated. In between times, however--or to help you confirm that it's time to hire a professional calibration service--there are a few things you can do yourself to check your scale's accuracy and calibrate it personally. For the purposes of this article it is assumed that you're using non-automatic scales, meaning that an operator is required to put things on or in them and note down the results; automatic scales need professional maintenance and generally cannot be calibrated by the user.
No matter what kind of scale you're trying to calibrate, you'll need to purchase a set of calibration weights. These are small weights that are guaranteed by the manufacturer to be accurate, and come in many sizes. They're inexpensive, and widely available.
Calibrating Mechanical Scales
If your scales are mechanical and have a dial you can adjust, the calibration process is simple. This includes slide scales as well as pressure scales.
First, make sure that the dial is set to zero. This is itself calibration, and will often be all you need to do to maintain accuracy. Place a calibration weight on your scale and if it's a little off, note down the difference. Take the weight off, reset to zero and try a different calibration weight.
If the dial is off by the same amount, you could choose to adjust for that: you'll then know that these scales are always off by 0.5lb (or whatever the number is). If many people operate the scale, however, this could be impractical! If you'd like the scale adjusted to read correctly it will need to be done professionally: contact the manufacturer or a professional scale calibration firm.
Calibrating Digital Scales
As before, your first step is to use a calibration weight to check the accuracy of the scales. If they're a little off, however, it's easy to make an adjustment yourself.
Start by pressing the 'zero' or 'tare' button to clear all data from your scales. Check the manual to find out how to enter calibration mode; it should be only a couple of button presses. Place a calibration weight on the scale, and manually enter the weight's mass. Wait for your scale to adjust for this information (the screen will make it clear when this has happened), exit calibration mode and remove the weight. Use a different calibration weight to check that the scales are now accurate.
If they aren't, you'll need a professional--but in the majority of cases this will be enough to fix the issue!
Share